Review – Killers (2010)

Welcome to Assassin Week: Day 3. Welcome to the second review of the day, Killers. Today was sort of themed around more light-hearted/comedy assassin films. It is the second film this week that I’ve already seen, but don’t have enough memory about it for me to tell you what I thought about it – so a rewatch was certainly needed. There are a few comedies about married people where one or both of them are secretly spies or killers, so I picked this one because it’s the one I remember the least about. So, let’s get started and talk plot.

Spencer Aimes is just your average, undercover, government-hired super-assassin accustomed to a life of exotic European locales, flashy sports cars and even flashier women. But when he meets Jen Kornfeldt, a beautiful, fun-loving computer tech recovering from a bad break-up, he finds true love…and happily trades international intrigue for domestic bliss. Three years later, Spencer and Jen are still enjoying a picture-perfect marriage – that is, until the morning after Spencer’s 30th birthday. That’s when Spencer and Jen learn he’s the target of a multi-million dollar hit. Even worse, the hired killers have been stalking the happy couple for years, and could be anyone: friends, neighbors, the grocery store clerk, even that crabby old guy shuffling across the street. Now Spencer and Jen are on the run for their lives. As their suburban paradise turns into a paranoid game of dodge-the-bullet, they must find out who wants Spencer dead and why, all the while trying to save their marriage. – IMDb

There’s one thing I dislike about the movie and one thing I love. The thing I’m not the biggest fan of comes down to Ashton Kutcher, who isn’t very believable as a super assassin agent in general. His demeanor, attitude, and overall appearance don’t scream the level of professionalism that is needed with assassins and ultimately what he claims to have. Just take a look at his unkempt hair, it’s Ashton Kutcher hair, and it’s not very effective for killers because it gets in your eyes. Either slick it back or cut it off. But you know…comedy and stuff, which gives it a reason not to matter, but I still noticed it.

On the other hand, what I loved about the movie came down to their neighborhood full of normal people that were secretly sleeper assassins that can be activated at any moment. It’s funny this time, because they are these nerds and random folks that just burst out weapons at any given moment, and looking like normal people works this time because their main job is to retain neutrality. So they make sense, they’re hilarious, not Kutcher.

Those were my first impressions, let’s go ahead and break down Killers and define the good and bad. Let’s interpret the stars.

Alright, so the people category is up first, which got a pretty decent rating overall. The acting wasn’t amazing by any means, but it wasn’t terrible. It was what you’d generally expect from a comedy about an assassin. The characters are decently memorable, though. The two leads are pretty good together, and the town as a whole is just as fun. The importance of the characters could be better, as a big portion of the characters just sort of blend in because they more or less have the same goal.

Next up, we have the writing category, which got an okay score. The first subcategory was dialogue, which mostly goes by unnoticed, this isn’t a very dialogue-heavy film, so let’s move on. It is, however, a pretty solidly-paced film, so the balance gets full points. The story itself is entertaining, but not a very strongly written story. They skip and skim over parts that sort of matter. Originality is next, and like I said before, there’s a lot of assassin comedies about married folks finding out about each other, so I can’t really say it’s original, but I can say that it’s interesting!

Behind-the-scenes is next. The typical comedy here, so nothing overly fancy or noticeable about the visuals. That’s the problem with typical comedies, nothing really impresses you when it comes to this category. The directing and editing both came and went without any real acknowledgment, the music was enough to work within the confines of the film’s theme. It was as advertised, but there is literally nothing else in this category that you can consider special or really all that noticeable.

The narrative arc structure was actually really good in Killers, but it has an awfully strange pacing. The introduction gets us acquainted with the characters and their lives together. The inciting incident, however, didn’t happen until 45 minutes in, at the very earliest. I wasn’t keeping time, but it could be closer to an hour, that’s way too late to get the story going, but that’s when she finds out that he’s a contract killer and they go on the run from other killers trying to kill him. The obstacles are just more of that, running from other killers. The climax is the culmination of everything put together, and the falling action has a return to the new norm.

How entertaining was Killers? Well, I would definitely consider a movie that no one would really have an issue rewatching it because hey, it’s plain fun for the most part, and it does actually suck you in here and there, but not as often as it should. I have no impulse to buy it, own it, or talk about it with anyone, so take that as you will.

We are finally onto the specialty questions that I wrote before seeing Killers. As it is assassin week, how did it do? Well, there was a bunch of assassins, but because of the comedic element, you’re going to have a hard time buying the fact that that’s what they actually are, so I gave that half points. The comedy angle, it is somewhat funny, so I consider that to have full points. How about romance? Well, it is about romance, but it really, really skimmed over some important character development that would solidify the chemistry between the leads, but because it skimmed through it, I’ll only give half points. Next up, how was the action? Not too bad, I’ll give that full points. Finally, was it halfway decent? I’ll say it definitely did what it intended to do from the get-go, so full points there as well.